MAAT completed its training program on the UPR for media professionals in Upper Egypt

Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights concluded the sixth training workshop in her training program ” to strengthen the capacities of journalists on media coverage of the universal periodic review”, which lasted between the 11thand 13th of February and hosted 25 media professionals working locally on human rights issues in the governorates of Aswan, Luxor, Qena, Sohag, Minya, BeniSuef, New Valley, Red Sea, Assiut and Fayoum

The workshop comes to complement the first phase of the training program, which succeeded in building the capacities of media professionals on the international mechanisms to protect the rights in general and the universal periodic review mechanisms in a more particular way, in addition to the following up and the monitoring of various government measures aiming to link it with the recommendations of the UPR and intensify advocacy campaigns in order to promote the fulfillment of human rights and to comply with the UPR recommendations of 2014. It was then followed by monitoring a range of local issues and media coverage from the perspective of international obligations, which resulted into shedding light on a series of ministerial decisions to improve the human rights situation and mitigate the damage caused by some of the practices caused by the presence of industrial zones harmful to the environment and health, in different governorates including Qalubia, Aswan and Cairo for example

The second phase of the training program focused on enabling participants to planfor and implement effective information campaigns to improve the human rights situation through linking the issues of local and national policies and development plans, legislation and electoral processes to the recommendations of the UPR in 2014 and Egypt’s International obligations in general. The training workshop identified some of the local issues that can be highlighted by the participants and completed media campaigns focusingon these issues, in order to succeed in providing basic services to the south governorates and to improve the human rights situation , especially in some of the most disadvantaged governorates. The most urgent issues included the improvement of health services provided to citizens in the Upper Egypt governorates, the development of legislation to improve the functioning of civil society and to counter the phenomenon of sexual violence

The most important recommendations of the workshop was to join the convoys of the universal periodic review created by the Foundation for the most disadvantaged governorates in order to shed light on the fulfillment of human rights challenges facing theses governorates

It is worth mentioning that the training program is one of the activities of the “universal periodic review as a tool to improve public policy during the transition phase,” project funded by the European Union during the years 2016-2017, which seeks to strengthen the role of the universal periodic review to improve public policy and human rights reform during the transitional period in Egypt, through the effective involvement of civil society organizations, activists and the media in the follow – up and the call for essential reforms for human rights, and the adoption of new policies in line with international human rights standards based on the Universal periodic review in 2014